Breaking Up On Me
by Threepwillow
Summary: As much drama as goes down in person with the glee kids, even more goes down over the phone. One three-day weekend almost changes everything. ::Blaine/Kurt, Finn/Rachel, Artie/Tina; also Santana/Finn, Mike/Tina, mentions of Sam/Quinn and Artie/Brittany::
1. Don't Wanna Think Any More

(**AN: **At last! I've had this fic idea – for a "telephone" theme!episode – for basically ages, since way before season 2 ever started and they actually did Telephone on the show. Revamped for the new era [aka my new OTP – Kurt/Blaine forever!] and finally, finally written! Enjoy!)

**CHAPTER 1: Don't Wanna Think Any More**

Rachel sat in the front row of seats in the choir practice room right across from the piano just like always. On her right was Finn and on her left was Mercedes, and she was just checking her buff-pink nail polish when Mr. Schuester walked in brandishing a little bit of sheet music and already giving her a significant look. It excited Rachel – she felt a solo coming on.

"Okay, gang," said Mr. Schue. "I know we kind of hit on Lady Gaga a bunch already with our theatricality assignment last year, but, well, that's a lot of the reason I want to go back to her today. You guys were so _on_ when that happened, I could tell that a lot of you were really feeling it. I think if we periodically go back to the stuff that makes us happiest – " he nodded pretty specifically to some space behind Rachel, where Rachel assumed Kurt was sitting – "we can scoop some of that good mojo back into this year's performances too. For today, I think this one is pretty perfect for Rachel and Mercedes. You two wanna come up and give me a hand?"

"Absolutely," Rachel said. In the same moment Mercedes answered with "Hell yeah." They bounced up, flashing each other an excited look as they crossed to the piano, and took the music from Mr. Schue.

Rachel glanced down at the one-word title printed across the top and absolutely froze.

_Telephone_.

"I'd figured that you could be Gaga and Mercedes could be Beyonce, but if you'd rather reverse parts that's fine too," said Mr. Schue, misconstruing Rachel's alarm. But being racially typecast had nothing to do with her moue of panic. No, Rachel's alarm and dismay was all a direct result of flashing back to the very first day of junior year, and that horrible, wonderful, _horrible_ girl.

Unfortunately, Brad started playing out the piano part before she could catch her bearings, and without being prepared to refuse Rachel's mouth sort of began to operate on autopilot.

_Hello hello baby you called I can't hear a thing  
I have got no service in the club, you see  
Whaaat did you say, boy you're breakin' up on me  
Sorry I cannot hear you I'm kinda busy_

Mercedes stared her down, grinning in a way that looked part fun and challenging and part totally evil, and when she opened her mouth to continue Rachel began to lose it.

_Stop callin' stop callin' I don't wanna think any more  
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor  
Stop callin' stop callin' I don't wanna talk any more  
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor_

And Mercedes was continuing to sing, but suddenly the voice that was coming out of her mouth wasn't hers any more, and Quinn and Brittany joined in on some weird backup vocals that totally shouldn't have been in this arrangement and her nail polish turned bright man-eater red like Santana's and all Rachel can hear any more is Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine everywhere –

_"This is a disaster!"_

Rachel flies upright in her bed, cold sweat seeping into her favorite nightie, and decides she can't take this any more. Her hand is clammy as it reaches under her pillow to grasp at her cell phone.

"Finn!" she hisses into the darkness of her room.

"Rachel?" he says groggily from the other end. "What are you, it's like three in the freaking morning - "

"This cannot go on any longer," she declares, clutching the phone to the side of her face with both hands. "I am having nightmares, Finn. Nightmares!"

"Rachel – "

"Do you understand what this means? I _never_ have nightmares, Finn, because my dreams are too full of me and my goals for negative thoughts to intrude!"

"Okay, my brain doesn't even work that fast when I _am_ awake, so you're really gonna have to back up."

"I just can_not_ get over that little miracle Sunshine girl," says Rachel, practically sobbing. "She was so...so _good_. Which is bad!"

"Good is bad – "

"Have you noticed we've barely heard anything out of Vocal Adrenaline this season? They are up to something, they're being way too quiet to not have something explosive up their sleeves for sectionals!"

"Quiet is explosive – "

"I just can't take not knowing! It is going to go around and around in my head until I can triangulate in on exactly what it is they're doing."

"Round is triangle – look, _Rachel_, can you just go back to bed? And then at bowling tomorrow – uh, tonight I guess – you can tell me all about it."

"You think I can bowl like _this_?" she demands. "No, Finn, I'm going to have to back out of date night to go spying, or at least go talk to my mom. I adore you, but in the place I'm at right now my sanity is more important." She hangs up, trying to figure out why she even called him in the first place, and, knowing she will never make it back to sleep with the haunting beats of Beyonce and Gaga ringing in her mental ear, decides to get a couple of extra hours in on her elliptical.

They got into her _dreams._

And this means war.

-xxx-

Mercedes scopes out the crowded cafeteria for a moment, tray in hand, until she spots Kurt and Tina already seated at a table back in the absolute crappiest corner. But they'll take it if it means they get to all sit together. Awkwardly, she maneuvers her way through the press of people until she can sit down. Tina smiles and says "hey" immediately, but Kurt's peering down into his lap as discreetly as possible, no doubt looking at his cell phone. It takes about two seconds for Mercedes to interpret the warm glaze over his eyes correctly – he's got a text from Blaine.

"Git it, lovebird," she says, tearing open a ketchup packet.

"It's – it's nothing," says Kurt, a little too vehemently, flicking his phone closed again and snapping out of his mini-trance. Tina giggles at the face he makes.

"Sure, sure. Kurt, how much longer are you gonna go on pretending you're not totally head over heels for this guy?"

"As long as I have to," Kurt says with a groan. "I just keep remembering the shit we flipped when Rachel was dating Jesse, and we're the sane ones in this group. If things between me and Blaine start going down before sectionals, neither of us will probably make it _to_ sectionals. It's very literally a kiss of death."

"I can take her," says Tina, brandishing the chopsticks from the bento box her dad packs her every other day (her mom lets her have normal food). "Seriously. Give me an excuse and I _will_ punch her in the face."

"Besides," says Mercedes, dunking a chicken nugget, "we always knew Jesse was bad news. Blaine is cool. I'm pretty sure _every_ Warbler is enough of a gentleman not to pull the crap that Jesse was pulling. People will understand."

"Rachel isn't _people_," Kurt and Tina say at once. Kurt leaves his mouth open like he's going to continue talking, but his phone buzzes in his grip and he looks back down at it, way too excited.

"Oh. Oh my god."

"What is it?" Tina demands, crowding up to him to read over his shoulder.

"The Warblers are doing their top-secret a cappella initiation ritual this week and – and Blaine just invited me to come get initiated as an honorary member!" Kurt's face is paler than he and his MAC products have let it get in years, and Mercedes would be worried if it weren't so adorable. The boy is in love.

"It can't be that top-secret if he's broadcasting it to you openly in a text," says Tina.

"Sounds like hazing," says Mercedes with a laugh.

"Deluxe, awesome, super-exclusive hazing," Kurt says, a swoon in every syllable. "Ladies, this is deathly serious. What do I say?"

"Say yes, duh!" Mercedes says. "What in the world have you got to lose?"

"Problem," says Tina, still staring down at Kurt's phone. "It's in the middle of the night, on a Thursday. My curfew may set the bar for freaking ridiculous, but I know even yours won't be lenient enough to allow that. And I've only met your dad like twice."

"He'll understand though, won't he?" says Kurt, voice weakening. "He's got to!"

"Not if you can't tell him," Tina points out. "It's supposed to be _a secret_."

"Yeah, you probably shouldn't have even told us," says Mercedes.

"But what do I _do_?" says Kurt, beginning to panic. "The Warblers only initiate non-Dalton students on the rarest and freakiest of occasions. Blaine's probably pulled so many strings to get them to do this for me..." His eyes are getting misty again and Mercedes can't stand to watch him go through this.

"Just tell him you're spending the night with me," she says.

"Lie, to my dad? Did you miss the part where he already had one heart attack?"

"No, this could totally work!" says Tina. "Say you're working on a time-sensitive project for glee, that Mr. Schue sprang on you last-minute, and if you don't have the costumes you'll be royally screwed. Well, don't say royally screwed to your dad."

"And I'll totally cover for you," says Mercedes. "We got this."

"Oh, what would I do without you," he gushes, pressing one gauntlet-gloved hand to hers across the white plastic table.

"You would never get _any_," she teases. He rolls his eyes, but with her smiling at him and Tina leaning over his shoulder again, he texts back an assurance to Blaine that come Thursday night, he will most definitely be there.

-xxx-

Puck's one of the last people to lope into the choir room after school, snagging his favorite seat at the back-left and chucking his backpack carelessly to the floor, and he likes it that way because he's able to scope out the room a little bit before Schuester gets there. Santana's looking extra-fine today. Rachel's looking particularly annoying. He can already tell this is going to be a long practice. With a sigh, he slouches back in his chair and just tries to resign himself to getting it all over with.

Down at the other end of the row, Brittany and Quinn hunch over their fingernails, chattering away about Britt's pink versus Quinn's pink when really? They are seriously just freaking _pink_. Mercedes is twisting some weird braid thing into Tina's hair in the row ahead. Mike tries to lean in for a kiss and Mercedes slaps him away.

"Cockblocked," says Puck as Mike slumps into the seat next to him.

"It's been really hard to get close to her lately," says Mike. "The girls are going crazy."

"I know what you mean," says Sam from Mike's other side, leaning in. "Quinn and Santana keep talking about how much they really just need to plan a _girls' night_. What the heck do girls even _do_ when they're all alone and girly, anyway?"

"Pillow fights," says Artie from down in front, and for a second there they all glaze over, picturing it. Puck's got a specific bra of Brittany's in mind, but he can't decide if she should be wearing it or Santana should. Shit.

"And they _never_ invite us," groans Mike.

"Well can you blame them?" says Sam. "I mean, if I were there for some of that stuff, every other word outta my mouth would have to be _Beiste_."

"Screw _that_," says Puck suddenly. "Why don't we just plan a _dudes'_ night?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But instead of staying in, we're going _out_."

"I dunno," says Mike. "Tina's been pretty close to busting my balls for less, _and_ my parents are super-Asian."

"Look, guys, this is what you need to understand," says Puck, picking up steam. "Do you know what happens two weekends from now?" No one answers. "Really? 'Cause I bet you Finn and Princess sure do."

"Kurt's dad and Finn's mom are having that engagement party!" says Artie.

"Exactly. And you know who else knows it? Every single chick in this room." Still hunched in together, the four of them turn their gaze outward, where Santana is showing Brittany and Quinn something on her cell phone and they're all giggling, Mercedes has moved to the other side of Tina's head, and even Rachel seems to have gotten obsessed with filing her nails to nitpicky perfection in the front row.

"Engagement means wedding," says Puck. "And wedding means that all the girls we know are going to suddenly get it into their heads that they want to be even freaking girlier then they already are. If we don't get out _soon_, we may lose our only chance at having a true bro outing before we fall slave to this ocean of estrogen again."

"Puck's right," says Artie. "I'll even DD, if y'all don't mind cruising in my cripple car."

"Done and _done_," says Puck. "I'll text it when I work out the deets."

"Text what?" says Finn, the last to lumber in, with Schuester right on his heels.

Sam and Puck exchange a grin, and it spreads to Mike and Artie too. "The night of your teenage life."

-xxx-

tbc


	2. Signals All Are Flashing Red

(**AN: **Please assume from this point out that a. I do not own any of the music I'm using in this fic, nor do I own Glee itself and b. If a song's lyrics are slightly different from the original or are out of order in any way, I have done it intentionally to make it work better with the fic and have tried to stay as true to the original as possible. Thank you, that is all, carry on, enjoy, and please review!)

**CHAPTER 2: Signals All Are Flashing Red**

Blaine turns the golden pitch-pipe over in his hands, over and over and over again, and stares across the table right through the flame on the seriously melted candle.

"Dude," says Wes. "Don't make me say it again."

"_Don't_ say it again," says Blaine, the smooth round edge of the pitch-pipe thumping into the palm of his hand. Kurt _is_ coming. He knows it. He told him.

"We did Tobias and John and Ray, we're done," says David. "The candle's gonna go out, man. If we leave this thing running all night we're gonna get caught – "

"Then _let us get caught_!" Blaine yells. Then he realizes how irrational that is. "No, guys, I'm sorry. It's just – "

"We know," say Wes and David together, for about the fifth time.

They know. Apparently everyone knows. Because apparently, Blaine has been super-transparent about the whole thing, ever since day one. But how is he supposed to help it? From the moment lost, eager-looking Kurt wandered into the halls of Dalton on his totally, adorably failed reconnaissance mission, Blaine felt it. _Felt_ it, as far down inside as anyone can feel anything. Blaine gave the best performance of Teenage Dream he ever had that day, and hasn't been able to top it since. It all just sort of poured out of him staring into those blue eyes.

(Well, the sleek line of his neck and his ass in those freaking _shorts_ didn't hurt either.)

"I'm just gonna text him one more time," says Blaine, setting the pitch-pipe aside and tugging out his phone.

"It's almost two – " someone says, but it's falling on deaf ears at this point.

**To: **_**Kurt**_  
srsly, where are you? its late. you missed it. were worried.

But it goes ten minutes without any answer, and so reluctantly, Blaine slips the pitch-pipe back into its case, and leans over and blows the candles out.

"It's a wrap, guys," he says, "welcome to the Warblers." But his heart's not in it. No one's heart is in it. And it's almost enough to make Blaine feel a little better – _e__veryone_ was excited for Kurt, more than any of their other new guys, and he's not even a Dalton student – except for the part where Blaine still misses Kurt, and still feels _awful_.

They pack the ritual stuff back up into the roller suitcase and send it home with David, and Blaine drives himself home, too, in silence on the dark deserted 2-am roads of Ohio. His phone, too, stays still and silent on his passenger seat. And that's the thing that has him most worried. Kurt _never_ goes this long without answering him. Blaine can text Kurt pretty much any hour of the day and get a response with at least some degree of polite promptness. (Lately, it's been enough to get Blaine's hopes up a little, that maybe he's not the only one who _felt_ it, that day.) Sending seven texts with no answer, that's a horrible sign.

He pulls into his driveway, but can't bring himself to get out of the car. He slumps against the steering wheel, staring at his phone, and makes a decision.

It's ringing.

"_Hey there, you've reached Kurt Hummel, and my life is probably too glamorous for the likes of you so obviously I'm busy. Leave your name and number, I'll have my people call your people. Ciao!_"

Despite himself, Blaine spends the first couple seconds of his voicemail chuckling at Kurt's fabulously preposterous message. "Cute. But no, look, it's Blaine, and you – you missed the thing tonight, and you seemed so set on it before, and I texted you like twenty times and you're still not picking up and we just – is something _wrong_, Kurt, because I'm worried, Wes is worried, David's worried, we're all – this isn't _like_ you," but then he stops, because how does he know what Kurt's like? How can he know, when they've only seen each other face-to-face once or twice, when their texts are intermittent at best? But Blaine knows, damnit, because Blaine _felt_ it.

"Sorry, I'm rambling," he says finally, "I can get like that." Another flicker of a pause. "You – _you _can get me like that, I think, Kurt. And I lose track of what I'm trying to say because I just want to say – _e__verything_, and maybe it'd be easier if I just...

_"We're on this roller coaster ride  
Hold on, I'll stay here by your side  
We head up to the sky, then we slide back down..."_

His voice falters mid-verse because he's kind of forgetting the order the words go in. Also because, um, he's basically about to give Kurt the biggest hint ever as to how he really feels. But with as real and weird to worry about as Kurt's mysterious absence, Blaine kind of stops worrying about stuff like how annoying he always thought it was that everyone assumed two gay guys couldn't just be platonic friends. Blaine wants to fight the stereotypes. He wants Kurt more.

_"This all seems so ridiculous  
Why can't we just get over this?  
Don't make me say the obvious without you_

"Answer the phone  
I know that you're home  
I wanna get you alone  
And do it again, do it again"

He slips into the repeat of the chorus a little more easily, and then trails off on _I practiced all my lines to a telephone while you were sleeping..._ and just ends with, "yeah. So. Call me. ...Bye." It's the strangest, stupidest, and somehow _deepest_ thing Blaine thinks he's ever done for a guy, and as he fumbles his housekey into the lock with freezing cold hands, he just hopes it pays off in all the ways he needs it to.

-xxx-

Finn sits one row back and one seat over from Rachel in geometry, which is like an amazing angle to check her legs out from, but also makes it really hard for her to ever notice that he's trying to get her attention. He finally does it by throwing a cap eraser at her, and she whirls around already scowling angrily.

_What?_ she mouths. He slips her a note. The note says, _Breadstix or Chinese for carryout with our movie tonight?_ Finn really wants Chinese, but he's going to let her pick, because she's been flipping out more than usual lately. With that whole...Vocal Adrenaline, little miss sunshine thing. Finn still doesn't quite understand but he's mostly just gonna go with it.

The note she passes him back is written in really, really dark pencil lines, and it says _Not tonight. Not feeling it._ And Finn tries not to, but he kind of huffs out a little sigh of frustration, because this is the third time. He gets his cap eraser back for his troubles, _hard_ – he's glad he's got athlete reflexes or it probably would have hit him in the eye.

He loves Rachel. He wouldn't have said it if he didn't. And he loves having her as a girlfriend, even if she won't touch his junk or buy him anything but showtunes CDs for their anniversaries. But what Finn doesn't really love is when Rachel gets like _this_, like somehow the fact that she doesn't have control over every single element of her life is her fault. No one could do that, they'd explode. And Finn really doesn't want Rachel to explode. He keeps trying to tell her this, but it never seems to work. Because at the same time as all of this, when Finn brought up the subject of his night out with the other glee and football guys, she hadn't exactly liked the idea.

_"What do you __**mean**__ a night out with the guys?" she demanded._

"Well, yeah," said Finn. "I mean, it was kind of Puck's idea, he knows a guy who's gonna hook us up and we're just gonna go have a good time."

"Need I remind you that Noah Puckerman is a young offender now?" she said. "If you get caught with him while he's doing something bad enough to get him busted again, it's going to mean extra bad news for you, too. It's basically the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

"Okay, well, that can't be true, because, um, we work with Brittany," said Finn, "but I see your point. I just – I was hoping I could spend some time with the boys, since you and I haven't really been doing much lately – "

"That is not true!" she protested. "We had lunch together yesterday!"

"Rachel, we have lunch together every day."

"_**No**__, Finn," she said, and it sounded pretty final. "Sectionals are too close to risk this. If the rest of them want to go out and make idiots of themselves, we're going to need at least one guy – and Kurt doesn't count! – that's not in the slammer."_

And that was kind of that. And Finn's _letting_ that be that, so he's really pretty frustrated that Rachel won't at least come over for Sweeney Todd and some vegetable chow mein. He folds her return note up extra-tight and stuffs it in the front pocket of his binder, trying to tune back in to Mrs. Trznadel.

Santana sits one row back and one seat over from Finn in geometry, which is a great angle to watch all sorts of hella drama unfold from, but also makes it really hard for either of them to notice when she's trying to butt in. So she has to wait until after class.

-xxx-

"I can't believe you're letting her push you around like this," she deadpans, barely even looking at Finn enough for him to figure out it's him she's talking to. "I mean, I knew you were pathetic, but this is just _sad_."

"Rachel's my girlfriend," Finn says, with about eighty percent of his usual conviction. "I'm just doing what she needs from me right now."

"Right," says Santana, opening up her locker and checking her makeup in the mirror that's inside (you will notice he followed her all the way there, even though his locker is a little bit in the other direction). "But what about what _you_ need, hmm?"

She can see him shake himself in the mirror. "I'm doing okay," he says. "My stuff's not as important, right now."

Santana wheels around. "Your _stuff_," she says, with a pointed look at his crotch, "is always important. How long has it been, _Finnocence_? Get any good handfuls lately?" The gears in his head are actually turning trying to calculate how long it's been since he got his hand up Rachel's shirt. It's _hilarious_. "'Cause I got a couple more since you last tried it out, if you know what I mean." She crosses her arms over her chest so that her boobs pop out a little bit more and his eyes gravitate toward them before he can stop himself.

"Santana!" he shouts suddenly.

"Oh, say it like that again."

"I have a _girlfriend_, Santana."

She leans in close to him. "_Do you_?"

This is too easy.

She rearranges some stuff in her locker, gets her books for her after-lunch classes and starts heading toward the cafeteria. He trails after her like the puppy dog he is.

"Wait," he says. "Just...what exactly are you getting at."

"_First_ of all," she says, "you can't let her talk you out of that dudes' night I know you guys are planning. I mean, think about it. Would you ever ask her to back out of a girls' night?"

"No," he says truthfully.

"Exactly. This isn't any different from that. Second of all...well, you _do_ have my number."

"Yeah. So?"

"_So_, I'm just saying, my parents will be out _real_ late Saturday night, Dad's got this fancy party over at the general practitioners', so if you wanna dip out of guys' night early, I'm gonna be all alone in my giant-ass bed. And you. Have. My number."

Finn glances back toward the geometry room, as if Rachel is still there. Santana seriously cannot believe how hard this is becoming. She could count on one hand the guys at McKinley it's this hard for her to seduce, and that's including teachers.

"Take control of your life, Finn," she tells him. "If there's something that you want, go get it. _I'm_ certainly not stopping you. My lips are sealed." She pauses for effect. "Well, unless you need them for something."

She runs her tongue across the edge of her teeth.

He runs in totally the opposite direction.

Jackpot.

-xxx-

Finn hunches into his locker, making sure no teachers are around to see, and then whips out his cell phone and texts Puck. _change of plan. guys nite is go. dont tell rach._ And the response, thankfully, comes fast.

**PUCK:** _wouldnt dream of it._

-xxx-

tbc.


	3. My Battery Is Low

(**AN: **Glad to see everyone is so concerned for Kurt, but he's basically my baby and I could never do anything to him. XD Keep reading and reviewing! I love you all!)

**CHAPTER 3: My Battery Is Low**

"So how does this thing even work?" asks Mike, as he crumples himself into the passenger seat.

"I have to do everything with my hands," Artie explains, pointing out the extra levers along the steering column and the panel off to the left. "It's actually not that bad, I'm used to it."

"What, doing everything with your hands?" says Puck with a leer from the back.  
Artie shoots him an eff-you glare through the rearview mirror. "Come on, we'll be late meeting Finn and Sam."

"For the record, dude," says Mike, "I've never heard Brittany complaining."

"Then again, Brittany never complains about anything," says Puck, and oh, _that's_ reassuring. Artie wants to call them out on it, because this is supposed to be a _guys'_ night out where they are just going to do _guy_ stuff and not talk about _girls_, which is half the reason he was so stoked about it in the first place. But the more he talks about it, the more they will talk about it, so he just leaves it alone, and lets his GPS steer them toward this place Puck keeps talking about.

It's hard, having this weird thing with the leggiest girl in school when he is definitely the least-leggy guy in school. And even with that obstacle, the physical side of their relationship is probably the best part. Brittany is an amazing kisser, having gotten in a load of practice, and she doesn't seem to mind the wheelchair thing. But is that because she's genuinely kind and accepting, or just because she's too thick to process why that would ever be a deeper issue in the first place? Artie's worst memory of the two of them together to date is when he'd tried to tell her how he'd just finished reading this really awesome article about Mutt Lange producing the new Maroon 5 album, and how that was sure to color their flavor at least a little, and wasn't that awesome, and Brittany said, _andIquote_, "But what if they use dog noises that people can't hear?"

Artie misses having someone to talk music with. Hell, he misses having someone to talk _anything_ with. But he can't think about it too much, he can't dwell on it, because if he does, he'll start to wonder how he and the guy sitting in his passenger seat are even capable of speaking to each other.

"There it is, dude, on the left!" says Puck, and Artie turns the car into the (pleasantly crowded – at least the place has a rep) parking lot, finding a spot near the back that Finn's brown sedan pulls up next to by the time they've got him unloaded and back into his chair.

"Let's do this shit," says Puck, and he leads them into the joint, busting the doors wide open.

-xxx-

When his father puts their movie on pause, grabs the newspaper from the coffee table and says "Sorry, kiddo," before heading to the bathroom, Kurt knows that this might be his only shot. He never thought there would be an _advantage_ to something as disgusting as the ways in which his father's bowel movements have shifted now that he's on his heart-safe diet, but in these blessed few moments of desperate freedom Kurt doesn't care.

He has _got_ to find where his dad has hidden his cell phone.

As soon as the latch on the door is firmly shut and he can hear the bathroom vent fan whirring into life Kurt bolts up from the sofa and skids across the hardwood floor in his stocking feet to the door to his father's room. Rifles through the nightstand's drawers – nothing. Too obvious. He checks through a few of the drawers of his dresser, too, even where his dad keeps his underwear (double eugh – they're his dad's _and_ they're Wal-Mart-brand tighty-whities), but it's not in there either.

Grounded. _Grounded,_ for trying to sneak out of the house. And like his dad's approach to everything, it's swift and blunt and intense – rather than two weeks of forcing him to come home immediately after glee practice and taking away his online-shopping credit card, Burt Hummel goes for a single three-day weekend of absolutely _nothing._ No glee. No internet. _No cell phone._

No Warblers initiation.

The exact thing, after his plans with Mercedes had failed, that he'd been sneaking out of the house _to_ that had got him grounded in the first place.

At last something in Kurt's brain clicks, and he dives under his dad's bed past a couple old socks and grungy mechanics rags and a baseball bat and finds his little beat-up wooden box where he keeps all his nice things (traces of Kurt's mother and a much younger Kurt, a couple autographed sports things, a little badge he won once for being voted best auto-repair in Lima). Inside the box, alongside all these things, is Kurt's phone, the battery nearly dead, the screen angrily displaying about a million messages.

Three texts from Mercedes. One from Tina, and an email from Finn.

Twenty-four texts, two emails and one phone message from Blaine.

Kurt's heart skips about as many beats as he frantically scrolls through the messages, not even sure where to begin. He supposes, after a moment, that he should start from the beginning. He opens the furthest-back Blaine email and finds a video link and the words _For your spy file, might be one of my new faves. A little predictable for a boys' group but what can we do._

-xxx-

Rachel has snuck into this auditorium before and knows its exact aural and visual weak spots. It's a good thing, because she's done with the whole spying-from-the-balcony thing. She wants to get as close as possible. She has to see Sunshine in action again.

When Jesse first told her about Vocal Adrenaline's Saturday late-night practices, Rachel had been in awe. The mere idea of getting high school students of _any_ status, even choir geeks, to sacrifice the most crucial night of their weekend to a higher cause like this impressed her so much that it had only endeared Jesse and VA to her further, and caused her to examine her own glee group's failing even more closely. This was what made them stand out from the pack. They weren't out at Breadstix or engaging in underaged tomfoolery or having, god forbid, a _guys' night out_. Show choir was what they lived and breathed. Now, she admits, it's a little bit scary in the _bad_ way instead of in just the good way. Rachel has enjoyed, through her relationship with Finn, relaxing ever-so-slightly into the mold of a regular teenager. This kind of dedication probably isn't healthy and definitely isn't normal. But it still blows her away every time she sees it.

By the time she's wormed her way down to the vicinity of the soundboard in the middle of the auditorium seats, they seem to have assembled for a male-centric number, but Rachel is still painfully aware of the presence of her ethnically-ambiguous archrival weaving in and out of the choreography. She thinks she's going into a panic-induced hallucinatory episode when the routine starts off with the flickering beep of a fake telephone – but it's not Gaga. Not this time.

"_Hello_?" says Sunshine twitchily into a headset mike, far stage-right.

"_Hi, it's me, what's up baby?_" answers Roger Flipp from stage left, whom Rachel can identify after careful Facebook stalking – he's up as Jesse's replacement for male diva lead this year. She saw a video or two of him already. He's good. "_I'm sorry, listen,_" he continues, "_I'm gonna be late tonight – don't stay up and wait for me, okay?_"

"_Where are you?_" says Sunshine, the microphone twisting her voice into a mockery of a phone-call recording.

"_Wait, say that again?_"

"_Hello?_"

-xxx-

_"Let me tell you the story 'bout the call that changed my destiny  
Me and my boys went out just to end up in misery  
Was about to go home when there she was, standin' in front of me  
I said __**hi**__  
I got a little place nearby – wanna go?"_

Blaine's eyebrow quirks up toward the camera on _hi_, and Kurt's heart is basically in his throat. Is it _legal_ for him to be that charming? Is he even _trying_? Even on his tiny phone display, even when the song is technically about a girl, Kurt can't handle it. So yeah, does Kurt want to go to _a little place nearby_ with Blaine? Hell yes. And it's not just because he's grounded and would give anything to get out of the house.

"_I should have said no,_" continues Wes, as the solo shifts.

_"Someone's waiting for me  
But I called my girl up and said..._

-xxx-

_Listen baby I'm sorry  
Just wanna tell you don't worry  
I will be late, don't stay up and wait for me  
I said yeah, you're dropping out  
My battery is low  
Just so you know  
We're going to a place nearby - gotta go_

The music in this place is obscenely loud, and it's prompted both Mike and Puck to get up on the DJ stage near the front, dancing and singing along with absolutely everything. Sam's totally wishing his phone could take video right now, because he would hold this over them for freaking _ever_. I mean, it's the _Backstreet Boys_. How the hell do they know all the words?

Mike misses a step, which is weird because it's _Mike_, but then Sam notices that he's digging into his pocket to check his cell phone. But whatever it is obviously isn't important, because he sticks it right back in, and then does this insane backflip that nearly kicks out one of the stage lights.

A moment later, Quinn's name flashes across his own display. And like Mike, he ignores it, slinking through the place, trying to find Artie who was winning them sympathy-drinks from the redhead behind the bar who totally wasn't carding. And the music is pretty much thrumming through him, too.

_Now two years gone, nothing's been won  
Can't take it back, what's done is done  
One of her friends found out that she wasn't my only one  
And it eats me from inside, that she's not by my side  
Just because I made that call..._

-xxx-

Rachel recalls, from the depths of her memories of her elementary school best friend who was fanatically in love with Nick Carter, that this part of the song originally had some more patched-in faux phone conversation. What it has now is Sunshine hitting obscenely long, Mercedes-caliber runs while the guys chant it out, _baby baby don't worry_, doing a rock-stomp move straight out of any real boyband video as she flits from guy to cheating guy...

-xxx-

The bridge is absolutely mindblowing – Kurt's fairly certain it was a cappella in the original _already_, and what the Warblers are able to do with it is truly on another level. He can feel his blood racing with it, and he can pick out Blaine's voice clearly in among the rest, especially as the harmony swells into the keychange...

-xxx-

_Let me tell you the story 'bout the call that changed my destiny  
Me and my boys went out just to end up in misery  
Was about to go home when there she was, standin' in front of me  
I said __**hi**__  
I got a little place nearby...  
Gotta go!_

-xxx-

Kurt hears the toilet flush, and throws the phone back into the box even though the video hasn't finished, racing back to his spot on the sofa.

Goolsby shouts "Hold it, _hold_ it!" and Vocal Adrenaline freezes, and Rachel takes this as her cue to leave. She's seen enough.

Finn's phone flashes into the darkness of this sketchy place Puck has taken them, and he looks down at it, and can't decide if it's the name he's most or _least_ looking forward to seeing.

**SANTANA.**

The text reads, _u know, i have ur number too._

-xxx-

tbc.


	4. Refuse :: Never In Between

(**AN: **Just a reminder to keep in mind that I wrote this entire thing before The Substitute aired. But how much did I LOVE the new B/K scenes? A LOT. LIKE THIIIIIIIIIIIS MUCH. :D Carry on, and thanks for the reviews.)

**CHAPTER 4: Refuse To Give In / Love Is Never In Between**

Tina frowns at her cell, then winces at the frustrated Mandarin shouting from the other side of her locked-shut bedroom door. Her dad on the phone with anyone is awful. Her dad on the phone with _Mike's_ dad is absolutely disastrous.

"Tinaaaaaah!" he shouts at her.

"I told you, Dad, I don't _know_!" she whines, because really, she _doesn't_. She has no idea where Mike is tonight - they usually don't do stuff on Saturdays, since they both have such absurd weekend curfews. But unlike Mike, Tina is not, apparently, _breaking_ hers. His parents are predictably furious, and are convinced that she has something to do with it. But Tina has no freaking clue.

"Tina," says her mother this time, quieter and calmer but probably no less angry. "If you know anything about where Michael is, this is a horrible time to be lying about it. You're going to get in serious trouble if I find out that something's going on."

"Yeah," Tina growls at her phone, "and so are you." She texts him again. _ur folks r flippin out. pick up dammit! where u ?_ No answer.

The thunder in the hallway dies down, but Tina still isn't opening her door. She can't handle her parents until she first figures out how to handle Mike. This isn't _like_ him, to leave her messages unanswered and put her through all this insane stuff. He of all people should understand how irate her crazy Chinese dad is going to be.

But that's the thing that snags at her, in the back of her head. This _is_ kind of like Mike, in the very fact that it _is_ so inconsistent. Mike can be wolfing down food like crazy one week for football season and then dieting like mad to get back into shape for dance the next. Mike can hit a crystal-clear note at glee on Tuesday and then crack it all to hell on Thursday. Mike can take her to a fun, thought-provoking action thriller on what is pretty much a perfect date, and then bomb out the next time with an everything-blows-up summer trash film. Basically the only things that are consistent about Mike are that he dances and he's Asian. Basically, the only things Mike and Tina have in common are that they dance and that they're Asian.

And, especially in instances like this, that is pretty freaking annoying.

She texts him one more time, but he still doesn't respond, and she can hear her parents muttering and pacing out in the living room. So this time, instead of just a text, she calls him.

_"Hey hey hey, it's Mike Chang! Text it! And if you tried that already then just leave a message and I'll try to remember to check this ish. Later!"_

"Well, it's nice to know that this is an across-the-board thing, then," she says. "Your parents are freaking out, you know, and now I kind of am too. What's _up_ with you tonight? You better call me the second you get this message or you're on no-touchy level 2 until freaking sectionals. Get it together!" She hangs up, kind of angrily, and then flops back down on her bed with a huff. Seriously. _What._

After a minute, she sits up, and looks at herself in the mirror. She studies on herself, her elaborate eye makeup half worn off from a day's wear, the purple peekaboo in her hair fading a little too pink for her liking in need of a touchup. Tina feels like she's pretty consistent. She's always pretty much known herself – well, apart from that Figgins-induced disaster last semester – and she wonders what exactly it is about her that even drew Mike to her in the first place. She knows what she likes about Mike – his body, his smile, his go-along-with-anything charisma. But what does Mike see in _her_?

What does he see...

Her phone is still obnoxiously dead beside her on the bed.

_See..._

_"C, A, L, L, I-N-G now  
I'm calling you-ooh-ooh  
Calling you now!"_

She picks up her phone but does nothing with it, just kind of stares at it and, after a moment, hops up and dances with it a little bit, as if it's actually someone who'd dance with her, and not just a symbol of the fact that no one seems to want to.

_"I aye aye  
Couldn't get my message through  
And why-y-y don't you pick up the phone?  
All my love is running down the line  
But you won't receive it, no no  
I aye aye  
Will miss your sweet words  
And cry-y-y if you tell me the same  
All I hear  
Is just an old lame occupied signal tone..."_

She stares herself down in the mirror, makes the dopey "phone" hand gesture at herself, and tries to do what Kurt and Mercedes and even Mr. Schuester have all told her before, which is get her rage out through singing instead of through smashing things (like her cell phone) against other things (like the floor). Plus, it's helping to drown out her parents outside.

_"Operator all you have to do is connect me  
I am waiting for it  
Help me, I am waiting to be_

"C, A, L, L, I-N-G now  
I'm calling you-ooh-ooh  
Calling you now!  
C, A, L, L, I-N-G now  
I'm calling you-ooh-ooh  
Calling you now, whoa-oh-oh!"

She's dancing around her room frantically to the oh-oh-oh part when she bumps into the leg of her bed, hisses out a curse, and realizes that she's probably being pretty silly. This time when she falls onto her mattress it's face-first, her cell curled in the crook of her lace-covered palm, her lips pouting outward.

"Mike," she whispers, "why won't you _answer_."

"Tinaaaaaaahh!" her dad shouts again.

What does he see in her?

This time, Tina calls someone she knows will answer.

"T?"

"Artie!" she shouts - because she can already tell that they're someplace really loud. "Where are you?"

"Puck started this dudes' night thing!" he shouts back. "We're at...I dunno exactly! Downtown!"

"Is Mike with you?" she demands. "His parents are flipping a major shit!"

"Yeah, yeah, he's cool!" says Artie. "We're gonna leave soon anyway, I'll make sure to take him home first."

"Augh, thanks," she says, finally able to breathe easy again. "You're getting me off the hook in a serious way, you're my hero."

"No problem, babe," he says, and then they both freeze. He hasn't called her that since...since...

"Gotta go," he blurts out suddenly, and she totally agrees with him. They stammer through their goodbyes and she hangs up, finally prepared to leave her room and fill her and Mike's crazed parents in on what's going on.

She hovers at the doorknob, though, because the gears are going too fast in her head. The _wheels_ are spinning too fast in her head. See, Tina knows exactly what Artie sees in her. He may be horrible at showing it, most times, but what teenage guy isn't? Artie likes her purple corset top. Artie likes her taste in DS games. Artie likes the tone of her voice when she's singing like mid-alto range, and has several times mentioned its effects on certain parts of his still-fully-functioning anatomy. Artie likes kissing her, and can just sit there and not even need to do anything else.

Artie is not a dancing Asian.

And that's starting to sound pretty cool right now.

-xxx-

Finn drives Sam home. Sam is feel-good buzzed – not as far gone as Mike or Puck, but he's definitely had one or two. He looks like he can handle himself remarkably well, and Finn wonders how much he might have done this before. Maybe at his all-dudes school he use to go to.

"Thaaaanks, man," he says, clapping Finn on the shoulder before he climbs out. "You don't regret any of this, do you?"

"Nah, man," he says.

"Everyone needs a bro night," says Sam. "Catch you Monday!" He laughs, breath puffing into the air, and then bounces the rest of the way up to his house. Finn waves awkwardly after his retreating figure.

No, he doesn't regret anything he's done tonight – so far. But once he pulls out of Sam's driveway, he's going to have to make a pretty weird decision, and he can't really make any promises after that. Rachel's place with her dads is even further out into the suburbs than Sam's house. Santana lives more into the heart of town in a big fancy house with her rich doctor dad and sales rep mom. Rachel's right and Santana's left. Rachel has barely spoken to him for four days, and Santana has been steadily flirting with him for two.

Finn turns left.

(And when Artie drives past Santana's house, having dropped off Mike as quickly as possible and turned around to take Puck home after, Finn's car is parked in the driveway. Artie, eyes on the road, doesn't notice. Puck, flushed face pressed against the back driver-side window trying to keep cool, _totally_ notices.

"Aw, shit," he says, but when Artie asks about it he laughs and says nothing.)

Her doorbell makes a weird extra-fancy noise when he pushes it, and she comes to the door in a Cheerios uniform skirt and a thin, baggy top that kind of falls from her shoulders and shows off the top edge of her boobs at the collar. It's sloppy hot. She's smiling, like she knew he would come, which she probably did.

"Come in," she murmurs, crooking her finger at him. Finn's pretty sure she put extra emphasis on the word "come," which is pretty awkward, but he follows anyway, kind of wishing he did have a drink or two in him after all, because he's sure it would help, would make him less aware of the clumsy way he's standing in her enormous foyer. He's only ever been to Santana's house once or twice before, as Quinn's date to some frilly parties, and definitely not when no one's been in here. It makes him feel really small, which is usually kind of hard to do.

The other thing that makes him feel small is a little voice that pops up in the back of his head every time he makes direct contact with Santana's lust-black eyes. It sometime sounds a little like Kurt – _what,__ what, __**what**__ are you doing_ – and sometimes a little like Rachel asking _how could you do this to us?_

Never "me." Always "us." Because that's what he and Rachel are now. They're an _us_. And with the casual way Santana is strolling through the house, leading him shamelessly to _her_ bedroom and _her_ bed completely surrounded by _her_ stuff, Finn knows there will never be anything anywhere close to _us_ with Santana, be it him or any other guy.

She leans up against her bedroom door and opens her mouth, not to speak, but to sing.

_"You were lonely, I was bored  
It may be more than you can afford  
But I'm sure we'll meet halfway  
And I've got this crazy feeling you've been trying to get to me  
When all you have to do is calmly call me!  
Call me!"_

But even as her shirt vanishes and her totally amazing boobs, barely contained in a deep purple lace bra, are completely on display, Finn's shaking his head.

_"Are you ashamed of what you've done?"_ she growls, pressing him onto the bed and then climbing around behind him, leaning into his ear.

_"All we did was have some fun  
I won't judge, and I won't tell  
And I'll forget you when you've gone  
I pity all you stuck-up stiffs  
Living wondering what if –  
What if someday I was free?  
And I've got this crazy feeling – "_

He cuts her off. "_No_, Santana," he insists. "I should never have come here."

She sits back up on the bed and stares him down. "You're right – if that's your attitude, you shouldn't have. Look, Finn, this is for your own good, it's just for _fun_, we're not looking for anything serious here – "

"You're not," he says. "But I am. And this...isn't the place to find it. _Ever_. We're not doing this, Santana. It was bad enough the first time."

"Yeah, and whose fault was that?" she shouts after him, but he's already running back down the stairs, and he grabs his jacket off the rack by the door, and when he realizes he left the lights of his car on, he takes that as an even bigger sign that everything about this was wrong, and that he should have turned right back there at Sam's house.

Because Rachel is right.

-xxx-

"This _better_ be good, Puckerman," snaps Rachel.

"Racheeellllll!" he cries into the phone. Good, she _answered_! That is _great_. "Rach. Rachel. Berry. Rachelberry."

"Noah, are you drunk?"

"Ah maybe a little. Look though I have something to tell you." And he does. He just has to remember what it is. Something about – "Cars. No. Houses. No. _Lopez!_ Dude, your boy - "

"Lopez? Santana Lopez?"

Puck frowns. Yeah, Santana Lopez. Finn Hudson's car was at Santana Lopez's house. And Puck should definitely tell Rachel. But he doesn't want to rat out his boy. But then maybe he does. Yeah, maybe he does! "Yeah, maybe I do!"

"_What_?"

"Wanna rat my boy out. Since he's not really my boy. He doesn't treat me like it any more anyway. Ever since I knocked up his girlfriend. I mean you wouldn't think it'd be that big of a deal! I wanted to tell him! It was all her fault! But then he punched me in the face, Rachel. In my _face_. I need my face. For chicks."

"Yes, Noah, of course you do. But what is this about Santana?"

"Finn. Went to Santana's. Tonight. After the guys' night. And he's there. Right now. Yeah! _Yeah!_ Finn is a cheating lying douchebag!" Finn is _totally_ a cheating lying douchebag. And that's why he won't treat Puck like his boy any more. Even though they should still be tight and shit.

"W...what?"

Oh. Oh Rachel sounds like she might cry. Puck did not prepare for this. Puck is never prepared for crying girls. "I'm sorry, Rachelberry. I can't believe him. I don't blame him. But I can't. But have you _seen_ Santana's new tits? They're bigger than yours. I can vouch for this."

"Yes I am well _aware_, Puckerman!" she shouts. "Go – go to bed. Just – _go_."

"Bust his balls, Berry," he says. But she hung up already, he thinks. And this is gonna end ugly.

Unless it ends in Santana and Rachel fighting in the middle of glee club. Because that'd be kind of hot.


	5. Never My Intention

(**AN: **The song in this chapter was the BIGGEST earworm out of any of the songs I used in this fic. jeesh. It will never leave you! ALSO, WHO IS EXCITED ABOUT DEATHLY HALLOWS PREMIERING TONIGHT~)

**CHAPTER 5: Never My Intention**

Rachel isn't talking to him.

It's really hard, because she needs to call an emergency glee practice to talk about her VA espionage, and people are way more likely to listen to Finn ("a good guy") than her ("crazy and annoying"). But she really cannot handle even looking at him right now. It makes her want to sob. Looking at Santana, meanwhile, makes her want to light things on fire, so that's kind of out of the question too. In the end, she manages to round up Kurt, Mercedes, Artie, Quinn, and Sam, and she trusts that the five of them will get the word back around to everyone else.

"I don't understand why this is such a big deal," says Quinn. "It's Vocal Adrenaline. We know they're freaky good. They've _always_ been freaky good. Knowing which song they're going to be freaky good _at_ doesn't really mean anything."

"Be that as it may," Rachel insists, "the closer we can go song-for-song against what they've got, the better we can prove ourselves just as _freaky good_ as they are." She adjusts the hem of her skirt a little, annoyed, when Sam leans onto Quinn's shoulder with a bored, vacant look. "They're getting bolder. Without Jesse as their shining star – "

"Oh come _on_," says Mercedes.

"_Without Jesse_, they're putting less juice behind solo-driven numbers and doing more ensemble pieces. I saw a little bit of Seasons of Love and a disturbingly good Backstreet Boys song."

Kurt, sipping from a latte, sputters a little. "BSB? Which song?"

"The one," Rachel hisses, "about the loser cheater boyfriend who calls his girlfriend on his cell phone."

Sam and Artie exchange a weird glance, too. "No way."

"No way is _right_," says Kurt – "Dalton's Warblers have a killer arrangement of The Call too!"

"What?"

"You're joking."

"_Wait_ a second," says Rachel. "How do _you_ know anything about the Warblers' set list?"

Kurt pauses just long enough for her to sense that he's lying. "There was – a video – on Facebook!"

"Hang on, no," says Artie. "I've been all up on Dalton's Facebook scoping out my friend Dwayne who's in their concert band. All their a cappella stuff is set to private. How come you can see it?"

"I just – "

"Spill the beans, Kurt," says Mercedes, taking his latte from him before he can crush the cup and placing her hand over his. "It's too late."

"Too late for what?" says Rachel.

Kurt sighs, adjusts his bangs, and then rolls his head back up to look them all straight in the eye in turn. "When we had our boys versus girls match a few weeks ago, I might have gotten a little...carried away," he says. It's an understatement, but they allow him to continue. "Someone suggested I go spy on Dalton. I took it seriously...so I did. The Warblers are _intense_. They knew I was a spy and went ahead and performed for me anyway, just to show off. If we can't get it together pronto, we're going to have our asses handed to us at sectionals."

"That still doesn't explain how you're Facebook friends with them," says Quinn. "For the record, I don't care," she adds. "But still."

"The first guy I ran into – the guy who led me in the direction of the Warblers, and then turned out to be their lead soloist..." He trails off, and looks panicked to Mercedes. She's not giving him any help. Rachel, however, is pretty sure she's pieced it together correctly in her own head.

"Is he that guy you've got the picture of up in your locker?" she says.

"Oh yeah," says Quinn, "the cute one with the eyebrows?"

"Why are all of you so privy to the contents of my locker?" Kurt demands, snatching his coffee back from Mercedes and taking a big drink of it.

"Kurt's totally got the hots for this guy," she finally says. "His name is Blaine, and he's legit. It's not another Jesse." Mercedes shoots Rachel a glare. "And even if it was, they're not dating. They're just...friends."

"Who wish they were dating," says Artie.

"I _don't_ have to stand here and be humiliated like this," Kurt tells them. "I hate you all."

But no matter how much they pick on him, they all seem pretty pleased. And Rachel, for the first time all day, is smiling – though perhaps not for the same reasons as everyone else.

"This is perfect though!" she cries. "If VA and Dalton have a partially overlapping set list, we look that much better for being fully original. It'll be just like last year, but this time we'll be on the good end of the deal."

"No," says Kurt.

"What do you _mean_ 'no'?"

"If Vocal Adrenaline is doing The Call, I have to tell Blaine. My cell phone turns back on in four hours and twenty-three minutes, and I'm going to tip them off. We don't need to cheat. We can handle it."

"How is the two of them picking the same song completely independently from each other or us cheating?" says Sam. "So they screw each other over. Awesome."

"I'm with Kurt on this," says Artie. "If it were us, I'd want this Blaine guy to tell us. That's sportsmanship, man."

"Sportsmanship isn't _showmanship_," says Rachel. "Kurt, you can't."

"Don't tell me what I can't do!" says Kurt. "I've already been grounded for three days, I'm getting really sick of being told I _can't_!"

"Well everyone else seems to think it's okay to _cheat_, why can't we?" Rachel realizes suddenly that she's kind of screaming, and then the icing on the cake walks in. The icing being Finn, Santana, and the rest of glee club.

"Whoa, there you guys are. Are we missing something?" Finn asks. As if he doesn't _know_.

"I don't know, Finn, why don't you tell me!" she shouts, right in his stupid face, and spreads her arms wide to indicate her whole self. "What exactly is it, that you are _missing_?"

When he can't answer immediately, she runs from the room. Finn, she can tell by the thundering footsteps, is right behind her, and the rest of glee club isn't too far back either. But Rachel just keeps running, before she sobs, or lights stuff on fire.

She sings instead.

_"I was sitting on the fence  
And I thought that I would kiss you  
I never thought I woulda missed you  
But you never let me fall, push my back against the wall  
Every time you call, you get so emotional  
I'm freaking out!"_

Because she is. She's freaking out. Rachel is really, really good at freaking out. The rest of the club corners her in the auditorium, and she whirls on them, staring down Santana.

_"Ring ring - is that you on the phone?  
You think you're clever but you're never sayin' nothin' at all!"_

Her stare shifts to Finn.

_"Hey hey, the way you spin me around  
You make me dizzy when you play me like a kid with a crown_

"It's what I wanted  
Until you lost it!"

And back to Santana, and she can't figure out if she's screaming or singing or crying any more because this is so, so screwed up, and all she wants to do is win, for once. Win sectionals. Win Finn. Win _something_.

_"Why won't you leave me alone?  
Hang up the phone, just let me go!  
Is that you on the phone?  
You think you're clever but you're never sayin' nothin' at all  
Hey hey, the way you spin me around  
You make me dizzy when you play me like a kid with a crown!"_

As she tears her way through the last chorus, pretty much everyone gets the picture that this has become about more than just their rival groups' set lists, and they clear out. Puck stays long enough to mutter something in Finn's ear, and the look Finn gives him is the nastiest Rachel's seen him since they found out about Beth. Rachel collapses against the front of the proscenium and forces herself to stop looking at him. She's already crying and that will just make it worse.

"Rachel," Finn says.

"What do you want from me?" she whispers.

"I want..." He struggles, but then sighs and firms up. "I want my girlfriend back. My nice, confident, superstar girlfriend who will still go on dates with me. Not how crazy you've gotten lately."

"I'm sorry if my _crazy_ isn't doing it for you!" she snaps. "You've gotta call up Santana for that particular brand of psycho, huh?"

"No. _No,_ Rachel." He puts his hand on her shoulder, and she lets him leave it there, though God knows why. "Look, I don't know what Puck told you, but what I'm going to tell you is the truth. I did go out with them on Saturday. And I did go to Santana's house afterward, because I thought...well. I thought. Or I didn't think, I guess, because I'm kind of bad at thinking. But I worked it out pretty quick nonetheless and I got out of there as fast as possible. We didn't _do_ anything."

"Why should I believe you?" says Rachel.

"Because," says Finn, "I'm about to tell you something that I've literally never told anyone." The sincerity rings so deeply in his voice that she turns around, and finally looks him square in the eye.

"What is that, Finn?"

"I'm – I'm not a virgin. I slept with Santana last semester."

Rachel's lip quivers, fresh tears threatening to spill over. "Finn - "

"_Last semester_, Rachel. Before we were back together for real. And I can tell you, it was terrible. If I could go back, and never ever do it, I would. Because I wish...I wish I could have saved that, for you."

_Oh._

"I realized that, when I went over to Santana's on Saturday. I was going to do it just because I was feeling crappy, and I thought it might make me feel good instead. But when I was up in her room, I kind of figured out that I wasn't going to feel...anything. And the thought of something like _that_ not feeling like anything at all, that's terrible. It needs to be better than that. It needs to be amazing. And I feel like for it to be amazing, you have to love the person you're doing it with.

"And I love you."

Rachel blinks back as much of the tears as she can. "Well, that's – that's awfully presumptuous of you, Finn Hudson."

"Pre-what?"

"Look," she says, "this is your last chance, Finn." She turns her voice as serious as possible, which is pretty serious, considering how much vocal training she's had. "I'm not laying much of the blame in this situation on you – it's mostly _her_ fault. And...and my fault. For going so crazy about Vocal Adrenaline again, and not seeing what was right in front of me - that this was getting...bad. But – but fool me twice shame on you, you know?"

"Rachel, I'm so sorry. You know I would never do _anything_ if I – if I thought it would –"

"If you _thought_ it would." She sighs, and finally can smile at him, just a little. "Just...try to be a little bit more careful, next time? Because I'm a fragile-hearted girl, Finn. And there's only so much of this I can take."

"I promise," says Finn. "We will wait until you're ready. Which means I will wait until we can do it as _us_."

_Us,_ thinks Rachel. She and Finn are an _us_. And she hopes to stay that way for a pretty long time.

-xxx-

It takes a while for Finn to get Rachel cleaned up enough that she feels prepared to join the rest of the group again. By the time they crawl out of the auditorium, lunch is almost over, and Finn is going to have to go to Spanish and Rachel is going to have to go to physics and things will have to kind of be on pause until glee club later in the afternoon. But at least they'll be on pause at like, a good part, thinks Finn. Like the part in the movie right when something awesome explodes, instead of when you pause it on somebody's face right as they're moving and they make a really stupid expression that you never would have seen otherwise.

Except that's kind of the expression on the faces of the rest of the glee club when they meet back up with them, because standing off to the side with Kurt is a short dark-haired dude in a sissy blazer, and they're doing whatever the whispering version of shouting is. Then they seem to notice they have an audience, and they cross back over to the group, but Finn thinks they look like they've definitely put something on pause, too.

"Guys," Kurt says, a little tersely, "this is Blaine."

-xxx-

tbc.


	6. The Matter Of Our Love's Defense

**CHAPTER 6: The Matter Of Our Love's Defense**

The hispanic cheerleader raises her eyebrow. "Way hotter in person."

Finn says, "Way _shorter_ in person."

Then no one's saying anything, but twelve pairs of McKinley glee club eyes are trained straight on him and it's starting to get weird. It was weird enough not even managing to get a word in with Kurt before the rest of them showed up. But now it's just..._weird._

"Hey," Blaine finally says, trying to make this as un-awkward as possible (though it's basically too late for that). "I just...wanted to come check on Kurt. You guys don't have to like me or talk to me or anything."

"We do if you and Kurt are going to be an item," Tina declares.

"Tina!" yelps Kurt. Blaine just kind of laughs.

"Tell you what, why don't we ah, try to work that out for ourselves first," he says. "And we'll - keep you posted." Finn's still huddled over Rachel, who looks kind of worse for wear, and Blaine catches on that and relaxes a little – something he can comment on, thank god. "Get – Rachel? – get Rachel cleaned up a little and go back to class. Or whatever."

The two blond cheerleaders and the Asian guy have already kind of lost interest, and most of them sort of flock away, though Mercedes lingers behind with a glance that says _you owe me all the deets later_ and the mohawk guy loiters even longer.

"If you break Princess Hummel's heart," he spits, "I will break your face. Giving this kid shit is _my_ job." He stalks away, clenching his fist, and Blaine isn't quite sure what to make of it. Fortunately, Kurt has already started laughing at how absurd the whole situation is.

And Kurt is pretty beautiful when he laughs.

"Oh my god, those guys are all just a bunch of idiots," he says. "Do you see what I have to put up with?"

Blaine rounds on him now that they're alone. "What about what _I_ have to put up with, huh?" he says. "Where _were_ you? Why didn't you text me back?"

"I was grounded," says Kurt.

"So grounded that you couldn't even get Mercedes or Tina to let me know what was going on with you?"

"Yes! _That_ grounded! My dad gets _crazy_ on stuff like this. He doesn't know how to handle it, because I don't usually break rules that he doesn't already think should be broken." Kurt fidgets with the cuff of his sleeve. "I couldn't even go to glee, and he locked my phone up in a box under his bed. I'm _sorry_. I didn't..." He swallows, and ducks his head. "I didn't realize you were going to care this much."

A hot flush creeps up Blaine's neck as he reminds himself that he probably _shouldn't_ care this much. They're not even dating.

(_Yet_.)

"Of course I care," he says finally. "I just – I didn't know what happened to you." His tone changes and he screws his face up a little. "What _did_ happen to you?"

Kurt flushes, too. Between them they're going to be awfully pink. "Dad caught me trying to sneak out of the house," he says.

"Sneak out – where were you going?"

"To see you." He tilts his head back up and catches Blaine's eye, and that is just it. Blaine is so, so screwed for this kid. "I'm never deleting that voicemail, you know."

Oh, crap. Blaine forgot about the Sugar Ray voicemail. "_Seriously_? Don't keep that. Please, _christ_ don't keep that. It was two am and I was rambling and I was in _terrible_ voice because it was _two am_ and I just sort of...panicked."

"Well, even your panic sounds good," Kurt says, with a little laugh.

They stand there in the hallway of McKinley, awkwardly. The bell rings at some point, and other students start to mill past them, in increasingly thicker droves. The thing is, though, Blaine barely even sees the other students. He barely sees anything but Kurt, any more. Kurt's wearing a yellow mini-trenchcoat and enough hairspray to punch a hole in the ozone layer, and his eyes are bright and shining, and his lips are bright and red. Kurt's got the most beautiful countertenor Blaine has ever heard and sends grammatically correct text messages. And if Blaine peers closer, looks _really hard_ at the one thing he can actually see clearly, Kurt is totally, absolutely looking back at him.

It's now or never. The hallways are filling up. Blaine bounces a little on the balls of his feet, terrified, and then reaches out for the collar of Kurt's jacket and yanks him across the small space between them to press their lips together in a quick, fierce, electric-charged kiss. He lets up before it can get too awkward for either of them, but his face stays mere inches from Kurt's, staring into his shock-wide eyes.

"Just...don't ever make me worry like that, again," he says. He lets go of the jacket collar, smoothes it out a little from where he was clinging to it for dear life. He turns to go before Kurt, standing motionless, can make him feel too terribly guilty about being making such a wild assumption.

But Kurt springs to life and snatches at his shoulders and yanks him back to slot their mouths together again. This kiss is...not quick. This one lasts and lasts – Kurt's hand sliding up from his shoulder across his neck to tangle in the hair behind his ear, and his own hands finding the small of Kurt's back somehow, and those flush-bright lips opening for Blaine's tongue in the smallest and sweetest way so that he can slip deep inside and tug this killer little sexy moan out of Kurt's throat – to the point that Blaine is worried Kurt will probably be late for class. The other McKinley students mill around them but the rest of the world is gone, so _totally_ gone, because Kurt is here in his arms and Kurt is finally _his_ to kiss like this and it only took everyone they knew figuring it out before they did to get them here.

They're just slipping apart for a little gasp of air and Kurt's breathy whisper of "_Blaine_" when they get shouldered into a stretch of lockers by a big beefy black dude in a football jacket. Blaine feels Kurt's hand smash between the metal slats and his own head and when they separate altogether to assess the damage, his knuckles are bleeding a little.

"Shit," he hisses. "Kurt – "

"No, don't apologize," says Kurt, staring hard at him with the hottest fiercest look of _want_ Blaine has ever seen (_and it's all mine_, he thinks, his heart skipping a couple beats). "It was worth it."

-xxx-

Rachel splashes her face with water from the sink a final time and then stares at herself in the girls' room mirror. She _almost_ looks like she was never crying, and as long as she _acts_ like she was never crying then she'll probably be okay. She can touch up her mascara in physics and –

Santana walks in.

They have a good bit of staredown action through the mirror and then Rachel turns around. "Congratulations, Santana," she says. "You've had your bit of fun but now it's over and I hope you enjoyed yourself."

"You seem awfully smug about it for someone who just lost herself a boyfriend," says Santana, eyebrow cocked into what is basically its default position.

"See," says Rachel, passion building now that she knows she's right, "that's where you're wrong. Finn and I are still perfectly happy to be dating and have actually come to a somewhat better understanding of one another from this whole ordeal. This joke seems to be on you."

"_What_?" says Santana dryly, still utterly convinced she's in the right. "He was about to cheat on you. With _me_. And you're not in here contemplating suicide?"

Rachel just keeps going. She's on a roll now. "No, because I forgave him. Forgiveness, Santana, because that's what people in real relationships do. Which you wouldn't understand because you've never been in a _real_ relationship, have you?"

"And why," says Santana, "would I want to do that?"

"Why are you doing _this_?"

"Because I hate seeing people happy, okay?" she spits out. "It makes me sick. Especially when it's freaks in love like the two of you. If I can't be happy and _I'm_ hot shit then there's no way you and Neander-tall deserve it."

"Are you unhappy, Santana?" says Rachel. "Is that what this is about?"

"Whoa, no one asked you to go all Barbara Walters on me, bitch! Finn's got needs, okay? And if you're not going to drop your panties and help a brother out, then I will. I'm here for him." But she's starting to sound less and less like she's trying to convince Rachel, and more and more like she's trying to convince _herself_. "For the record," she says, "it didn't _mean_ anything."

The bell rings, and Rachel scoops up her books and her purse, and crosses past Santana to go to class. "Exactly."

-xxx-

Artie stares, for a few good minutes, at the chalkboard. He has to at least kind of look like he's paying attention to Mrs. C, especially since he sit so near the front because of his chair. He makes note of how her eyes pass over him as she's lecturing. But the instant she has her back turned to the room to write something more about Shakespeare, he taps his phone to life and texts Tina, who is about four seats across the room and three rows back. (Tina hates sitting near the front.)

**To: TINA CC** sry sat. nite was so craycray.

She, of course, can text back pretty easily, being so far away.

**From: TINA CC** not ur fault. thx 4 answerin.  
**To: TINA CC** it was fun tho. u & me should go sometime. go out & stuff.

There's hesitation. Artie risks a glance back at her, and her black-and-purple head is hunched over her phone, down between her and the desk with her big Norton reader blocking it out. She's studying on it, hard. She's thinking.

**From: TINA CC** mike. :(

Artie agrees. Mike. Frownyface.

**To: TINA CC** doesnt have to be a datedate. just as friends. were friends, rite?  
**From: TINA CC** course we r.  
**From: TINA CC** & the mike thing...we can work that out l8r.

Mrs. C sweeps the class again and Artie can't answer. But it probably would have taken him a few minutes anyway, because he's going to have to get the smile off his face first.

Or, well, maybe he won't.

**To: TINA CC** B)

-xxx-

Before they start, Kurt hands his phone off to Mr. Schue, and when they finish, they all crowd around to watch it back. It's good. _They're_ good. And considering just how good they are, Kurt figures he owes the Warblers one. It takes freaking forever to upload, but then he emails Blaine the link from his phone, and waits patiently for the response.

It starts with Artie.

_"Did you get my message? the one I left  
When I was trying to condense everything that I meant  
In a minute or less when I called to confess  
And make all of my stresses go bye-bye"_

Then Tina cuts in –

_"Did you get my message? You didn't I guess  
'Cause if you did you woulda called me with your sweet intent  
And we could give it a rest, instead of beatin' my breast  
And making all of the pressure go sky-high"_

"Do you ever wonder what happens to the words that we send?" sings Puck.

_"Do they bend, do they break from the flight that they take  
And come back together again  
With a whole new meaning and a brand new sense  
__**Completely unrelated to the one I sent?**__"_

Sam and Finn's harmony on the last line of the prechorus is Warbler-worthy, and when they hit the chorus's crooning refrain of _did you get my message?_ and the girls start their ooh-ooh part, Kurt's pretty sure that Blaine's going to be kicking himself and wishing he weren't at an all-boys school.

Kurt can only get through about half of it himself before Blaine's text pops up and interrupts.

**From: **_**Blaine 3**_  
sectionals is gonna be insaaaane yo

**To: **_**Blaine 3**_  
Whoever loses takes the winner to Breadstix.

**From: **_**Blaine 3**_  
youre on.

And Kurt totally is.

-xxx-

Santana, later, sprawled alone on her huge-ass bed, watches through to the end. Her part.

_"Did you get my message, love  
That I wanna reconnect with you?"_

She calls Brittany.

"Hello?"

-xxx-

the end!

(**AN: **thank you so much to everyone for reading and reviewing! I jumped into writing for this fandom kind of out of nowhere and it means a lot to me to have gotten such positive feedback. I love you guys! Keep on gleekin' out!)


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